Day: November 6, 2013

What is Justice?

This post was started on 1-6-2013 and I just recently found it in my drafts. I am going to work on finishing it tonight though I am again not sure where I was headed when I started this. I just skimmed the article again to refresh my memory.

I have been ruminating on recent NYTimes article regarding something called restorative justice. You can read the article here. It will take you a bit of time to read it but it is well worth the read. I will wait.

Okay, how many of you are now thinking, “There is NO way that could be me?” I volunteered for the same organization as Kate many years ago and we “met” online. We have been Facebook friends for a few years and I heard of Ann’s shooting when it happened. I could not imagine the feelings of Kate, Andy and Conor’s parents. The feelings of sadness, anger and betrayal by a boy they loved and raised.

Reading this article has really given me food for thought. Just how one finds that kind of forgiveness in their heart is almost beyond me. Tragedy has touched my life in a profound way, also through a murder. In my case, it was a young girl, just barely a teenager. I had not even met her in person before but had Facebook chatted with her many nights and she was my son’s girlfriend in Cincinnati, as two teens who live an hour apart can be boyfriend and girlfriend. Much easier in the digital age in which they were raised.

It is hard for me to think of forgiving her murderer. Of being able to sit there and hear what happened. Feel it as if I were there, because that is what parents do. I feel sick, as Michael must have, reading of him stopping on the way to the hospital to vomit. I hear what Andy may have sounded like when he heard Conor talk about what he did to his daughter, how she cried out in a vain attempt to live. I get a pit in my stomach just writing this.

I know that holding onto anger and rage only hurts me. Not the person who has hurt me. I know that. I get that. I just can’t always get beyond it. A week or so after Esme was murdered, Michael was told he could not go to the local park. I just couldn’t do it. He needed to be home. To be safe. He went anyway. I found him and I remember yelling at him and crying, “I get to be over protective for a few weeks. I GET to be this way. You can’t take this away from me. I won’t always be like this but I need more than a week. Get yourself home NOW!” He got it. And I got over that … mostly.

Tragedy like this affects your life … forever. Some things will never be the same. I look at things differently. I worry each time Maggie walks to work. Or wants to go for a run. Or a bike ride by herself.

I admire Kate and Andy and Conor’s parents for having the faith and love and desire to get to the space of forgiveness. To know that this is for them as much as for Conor … actually, it is more for them than for Conor. I actually wish more of the world could move to this space of love.  It is hard for me to separate forgiveness out from punishment. I worry that forgiveness means no repercussions. This is another example of how that is not the case. Conor is serving time for his crime. If Kate and Andy did not forgive him, they would also continue to be punishing themselves. Carrying around hurt and anger does not do a body good.

Does this change what you think of when you think of justice? I used to be very pro-death penalty. Then I was very anti-death penalty. After a personal experience, I felt that I could be happy seeing that man put to death (he is on death row, if anyone wants to know). What constitutes justice? An eye for an eye? Turning the other cheek? There are many forms of justice. I hope to be able to get to this space some day myself.

Roller Derby

Stress has been the name of the game these past couple of days at work. Nothing that I won’t get over but the fun has been few and far between. Had an interesting and fun IM with my manager today about Maggie’s interest in roller derby.

When I was first approached about it, I told her I would look into it and think about it. All smart kids know that means one of two things: parents will ignore the fact that the conversation ever took place or that it is an immediate and resounding, “No!”  Maggie was not going going to let me get away with either option so I did what any tech-savvy mom would do: I Googled “roller derby Dayton Ohio” and found one adult league and no junior league options. I told her emphatically I was NOT driving her to Cinci so we were good. Or so I thought.
A few months later, junior roller derby came to Dayton Ohio and she was THRILLED. I was  not. I hemmed. I hawed. I asked a friend who does roller derby what she thought about my precious snowflake daughter hanging out with such riff-raff getting hurt by tough girls and was told, “Let her do it! She will learn so much and have so much fun!” Since I really did trust Kimberly, I grudgingly went to the first meeting. What helped is that a friend brought her daughter along as well. The girls were so excited about it and the moms are really cool, too.
What roller derby has brought to Maggie is such a sense of self confidence. Anyone who knows her well knows she is not really lacking in that area but she really does shine on her wheels. She is kind and considerate to the less experienced girls and is able to be hard (yet kind) to the girls she is practicing with each week.
My manager and I were IM’ing yesterday about Maggie and roller derby. He commented something along lines of, “What? She couldn’t pick something with less contact  like badminton? Doesn’t she like her teeth?” We both got a chuckle out of that. It really made me think, though, of how much she has grown since starting roller derby. She has always been kind and considerate of others. Compassionate. This has given her an outlet for some of that and has given her an avenue to strive to do her best and beat her own previous records. She is a leader and it shows.
I started this post last night when I think I had a different point I wanted to make but was unable to keep eyes open. If I remember where it was heading, I will come back to it.